Opinion

By Jonas Lipsius

June 6, 2018 — 2.24pm

In Monday's keynote address at Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference – a week-long gathering for developers that has grown in pomp, ceremony and stature to become the tech equivalent of a cross between the Oscars and the State of the Union address – the company announced new features built into its soon-to-be-released iOS 12 operating system to tackle our growing addiction to phones and tablets.

These include an enhanced "do not disturb" mode that hides your alerts during sleeping hours and “Screen Time”, which provides a report of your phone usage and allows for time limits to be set on the use of certain applications. Google has introduced similar measures for its Android phone operating system.

Apple CEO Tim Cook explains the new iOS 'Screen Time' feature at the World Wide Developers Conference in California on Monday.Credit:AP

Apple has also developed more in-depth parental controls that allow parents to block the use of particular apps on their children's devices during specified hours and have more oversight over how the devices can be used.

We have become inseparable from our mobile phones. The term "nomophobia" (no-mobile-phone-phobia) has entered our lexicon and a study by MIT Sloan Management School has shown most people who have to "give up" their phone for a day suffer at least some level of anxiety.

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Google searches for "phone addiction" have increased four-fold since the dawn of the smartphone age 10 years ago. Even more alarmingly, a study has shown that heavy phone and internet usage changes the chemical balance within the brain, making people less focused and more vulnerable to distraction.

Yet As Apple revealed its new anti-addiction measures, it also celebrated 10 years of the iOS App Store, reporting it had 20 million developers for the platform, over 500 million visitors a week, and had surpassed US$100 billion ($130 billion) in payments to developers since its inception.

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So it’s hard to see Apple’s "solution" to the phone-addiction epidemic as much more than an attempt to create positive PR and deflect attention away from the fact they were the very company that essentially gave birth to the entire modern smartphone market and app store concept. They are hardly going to kill the goose that lays the golden egg, which in Apple’s case is iPhone and iPad sales that make up nearly 70 per cent of the company’s revenue. As you would expect then, all of the controls are opt-in, and can be extended, changed or cancelled at a user’s whim.

The address recognised that – along with the other tech companies – Apple is beginning to draw the ire of a public becoming more aware of the negative effects of phone use on society. The announcement brought into sharp focus a slightly uncomfortable parallel between Apple's own products and other notoriously addictive vices – which have been outlawed, significantly taxed or subject to restrictions on their sale.

Remember the date. The address may well have been the opening offensive salvo in the newest addiction showdown in town. And we all might be the ones who get sent to rehab.

Jonas Lipsius is a Sydney lawyer who has interests in management, tech, privacy and legal issues.